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| User: | being_alive35 (90433) Running Without a Script
Between Gigs |
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| Name: | being_alive35 | |||||||||
| E-mail: | bobbybaby35@gmail.com | |||||||||
| AOL IM: |  mousefantastic (Add Buddy, Send Message) | |||||||||
| Bio: | This journal is a Role Playing Journal associated with the Chaos Cube Community. The character of Robert (O'Brien) does not belong to me, nor does anything associated with the Stephen Sondheim musical, 'Company', upon which Robert is based. His last name and profession are never mentioned during the course of the show, so I have expanded upon his character for the purpose of role playing and making him 'real'. I have chosen Robert to be portrayed by one of Mr. Sondheim's favourite performers for that role, even though he only did a special seventeen-show run as the lead character: John Barrowman. I make no profit from playing this character, as this is a game and just for fun. Nothing to see here, folks. Move along. E-Mail: bobbybaby35@gmail.com Fandom: Broadway Musical - 'Company' Character: Robert (O'Brien) Point in Canon: I have decided that this Robert exists approximately one week after the events of the show, which means one week after his thirty-fifth birthday. The musical is intended to be current with whatever year in which it is performed, so I have set the character's story in 2007. Description: Robert O'Brien is tall (6'-1"), dark and handsome. He fits the traditional, classic Hollywood look of a leading man, complete with square jaw, dimple in his chin and dimples when he smiles. His smile is dazzling. He is 193 lbs. of fit Human male who is used to regular exercise, which includes two hours of dance routine every day. He prefers to wear suits though doesn't always stick with convention when it comes to the shirts that go underneath. Sometimes it's a tank top instead. Depends on the venue. He doesn't wear ties unless he absolutely has to. When not working or on business interviews, he can usually be found in denim. He isn't very designer conscious and doesn't wear anything with slogans or promotional material. He wears his hair short and neat and keeps his face clean-shaven. He has a 'look' to maintain and a reputation to uphold. He is fairly recognizable - the profile and blue eyes are a very distinctive shade - so a baseball cap and sunglasses are frequent accessories, sometimes even indoors. He also wears glasses for reading and doesn't bother with contact lenses to correct his vision. He is rarely without his cellular telephone, Blackberry and/or pager. He has a Blue Tooth hands-free ear bud for when he drives or is out jogging. Of course, he unplugs completely when he's on stage and during a performance if he's in the audience. Important Personality Traits: Robert or any number of other names he goes by - Bobby, Rob, Bobbo, et cetera - is a fairly agreeable man. He is smart, witty, extroverted, and certainly what people might picture when they think of 'Broadway actor'. He has many friends from a wide range of social and political backgrounds. Most of his friends seem to be married. He enjoys their company but is tired of being set up on blind dates by them. They all think he should be married. He has a number of girlfriends at any given time but hasn't found one that would make him wish to commit to a life-long relationship. He likes to flirt and play the field. He's just getting tired of the game. Robert could be categorized as having 'commitment issues'. He tends to be very organized an driven when it comes to his professional life, but his private life is more of a shambles. He lets his friends consume his time so that they are entertained and have someone to talk to about their problems. Robert is a good listener, but doesn't always know when to say 'no'. He has been known to burst into song and occasionally dance in public, much to the chagrin of his non-thetre friends and the delight of his theatre friends, who frequently join in. Additions to His Character: For the purpose of the RPG, I have given him a last name - O'Brien - and thus, a heritage - Irish. I have his grandparents on his father's side arriving as children to Ellis Island in the early Twentieth Century. I have also give him a career that fits in with his ability to socialize with many different people, have a weird enough schedule that he can have at least three girlfriends at any given time, and have him be creative. Robert is currently a choreographer and vocal coach for a Broadway revival of 'West Side Story', though he performs in some off-Broadway productions as well. He moved from being a leading man in the world of musical theatre to a 'behind-the-scenes' role because though he looks younger than his thirty-five years, he knows won't always be able to keep up with the new, younger talent and is building a niche for himself. As an actor in musical theatre, he personally excels at singing - baritone - and dancing jazz, tap and swing. He is well-versed in Ballroom and Latin dance as well. He enjoys going to clubs and is usually a desired partner for the dance floor. He is recognizable by those who follow the Broadway scene and there are frequently fans outside the stage door when he leaves. They can be there at any time of the day - morning coffee break at a rehearsal, after a show at one-in-the-morning, hovering for a photo opportunity when he arrives for an opening night performance. He is modest and patient and talented and is known for treating his fans very well. If only he treated his girlfriends with equal respect. His inability to settle down or even have only one girlfriend at a time is a character flaw, though apparently expected for someone in his field. He claims to want commitment but is scared of being restricted, of losing his identity when he marries and becomes a frightening 'joint entity' - or just lead a life of chaos, like so many of his married friends. Canon Facts: (The Short Form) Company is a musical with a book by George Furth and music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. Originally entitled Threes, its plot revolves around Bobby (a single man unable to commit fully to a steady relationship, let alone marriage), the five married couples who are his best friends, and his three girlfriends. Unlike most book musicals, which follow a clearly delineated plot, Company is a concept musical comprised of short vignettes, presented in no particular chronological order, linked by a celebration for Bobby's 35th birthday. Company was among the first musicals to deal with adult problems through its music. As Sondheim put it, "they are middle-class people with middle class-problems." It is also one of the first musicals where the songs commented on the characters in the play instead of furthering the plot, a device which became a Sondheim standard. Background - My thanks to Wikipedia for summarizing the plot points of 'Company' very well. George Furth wrote 11 one-act plays in which he planned to have Kim Stanley enact each of the 11 leads. Anthony Perkins was interested in directing, and asked Sondheim to read the material. After Sondheim read the plays, he asked Harold Prince for his opinion; Prince thought the plays would make the basis for a musical. The theme would be New York marriages with a central character to examine those marriages. Note:In the early 1990s, Furth and Sondheim revised the libretto, cutting and altering dialogue that had become dated and rewriting the end to act one. This synopsis is based on the revised libretto. Act I It's Robert's birthday. He's 35, he lives in New York City and he's single. His friends, most of them married and all of them couples, have gathered at his apartment to give him a surprise party (a party Robert knows about thanks to a careless message left by one of their number, the neurotic Amy) and to wish him the best. None of them know each other, they just all know Robert, or, as he's alternately known, Bob, Bobby, Robby, Robbo and a variety of other pet names bestowed on him by the ten married people he has attached himself to. Robert tries to blow out the candles, but they stay lit. It's alright, someone cries, he still gets his wish. What was his wish? Nothing. Not even to be married. Joanne and Larry, Peter and Susan, Harry and Sarah, David and Jenny and Paul and Amy, his married friends, these good and crazy people, are all he needs ("Company"). What follows is a series of disconnected scenes, each featuring one of the couples and Robert. The first scene features Robert with Harry and Sarah. Robert has brought over some brownies and some brandy for a nightcap, but Sarah is dieting and Harry is on the wagon, or at least that's what they say. Between needling and taunting each other mercilessly about their respective vices, Harry sneaks glasses of brandy and Sarah hides bites of cake. Sarah has been studying karate, and Robert implores her to demonstrate a throw or two. She does so, on Harry. He tries to counter, and they are soon thrashing about in violence that may or may not be playful. The caustic Joanne, the oldest, most cynical and most-oft married of Robert's friends, watches and observes that it is "The Little Things You Do Together" that make a marriage work. After Sarah has gone to bed, Robert asks Harry if he ever regretted getting married. He answers, and the other married men concur, that you are always "Sorry-Grateful", and that marriage changes both everything and nothing about the way you live. Robert is with Peter and Susan next, on their apartment terrace they can sort of almost see the East River from. They seem like a perfect couple, apart from her frequent fainting spells. He's Ivy League, she's a southern belle, and they love each other very much. Robert innocently flirts with Susan, telling Peter that if they ever break up, he wants to be the first to know. Well, they reply, he's the first to know. They're getting divorced. At the home of Jenny and David, Robert has brought some marijuana along with him. Jenny is rather uptight and David is very chic, and all three puff away feeling very hip and proud of themselves. David declares himself potted and the self-admitted square Jenny talks non-stop before realizing she is completely stoned. The couple, even in their enlightened state of consciousness, finds the strength to grill Robert on why he hasn't gotten married yet. It's not like he's opposed to it. He's looking. In fact, he's found three lovely young women he is currently fooling around with. The women, Kathy, Marta and April appear and proceed, Andrews Sisters-style, to berate Robert for his reluctance to commit ("You Could Drive a Person Crazy"). As the evening at Jenny and David’s comes to a close, David tells Robert privately that Jenny really doesn't enjoy the pot, but she does it to please him. Everyone it seems is trying to pair Robert off with someone, and each of the deeply-envious men has found someone perfect for a night of pleasure or two. When you can have that, they chorus, why would you want to get married ("Have I Got a Girl For You")? But Robert is happy to put off anything like that for a while. He's waiting for someone, someone who is a composite of all his married female friends, someone who has Amy's sweetness and Sarah's warmth and Susan's blue eyes. She's out there, somewhere ("Someone is Waiting"). Robert meets his three girlfriends in Central Park on three separate occasions as Marta sings of the city: crowded, dirty, uncaring and wonderful ("Another Hundred People"). Robert meets with April first. She's an airline flight attendant, and not a very bright one. She knows she's boring and dumb, and she's okay with it. She's found a great set-up with an uninterested male friend, and seems happy. Robert and Kathy meet in a secluded, quiet clearing in the park. She loves it here because it's out of place in the hectic City, just like she is. Robert admits that at the beginning of their past relationship, he would have married her. She admits the same thing, and they laugh at the realization that they both wanted to marry each other before she drops a bombshell: she's going back to Cape Cod to get married. She doesn't belong here; just like the clearing they're in. And then she's gone. Marta, on the other hand, loves the city. It's the center of the universe. The out-there Marta babbles on about topics as diverse as true sophistication, the difference between uptown and downtown New York, and how you can always tell a New Yorker by their ass. Robert is, frankly, left stunned. Amy and Paul have lived together for years, but are only now getting married. To say Amy has cold feet is the understatement of the millennium. She is in an unprecedented state of panic, and as a celestial soprano (played by Jenny) comments and Paul harmonizes rapturously, Amy patters an impressive list of reasons why she is "Not Getting Married Today." Robert, the best man, and Paul watch as she self-destructs over warm orange juice and burnt toast and the rain and the fact that Paul is Jewish while she's Catholic and finally just refuses to go through with it. Paul dejectedly runs out into the rain without a coat. Robert tries to comfort Amy, but winds up proposing to her: "Marry me and they'll all leave us alone!" His words jolt Amy back into reality, and with the parting words "you need to marry somebody, not someBODY, she runs out after Paul. Back at the birthday party, Robert is given his cake and tries to blow out the candles again. He wishes for something this time, someone to "Marry Me a Little", praying for an easy, no-strings marriage. Act II At the party, Robert blows out his candles again. This time, he gets them about half out, and the rest have to help him. The couples share their views on Robert with each other, comments that range from complementary to unflattering, as Robert reflects on living in threes ("Side By Side By Side"), a turn soon followed by the up-temple paean to Robert's role as the perfect friend ("What would We Do Without You?"). In a dance break in the middle of the number (or, in the case of the 2006 revival, in a musical solo section), each man in turn does a dance step (or, in the case of the 2006 revival, plays a solo on his instrument), answered by his wife. Then Robert does a step (or, in the case of the 2006 revival, plays two bad notes on a kazoo). No one answers it. Robert brings April to his apartment for a nightcap after a date. She marvels at how homey his place is, and he casually positions her over the bed as they share stories about a crushed butterfly and a spoiled date, going through the usual movements associated with casual sex. Meanwhile, the married women worry about Robert. He's lonely, they say, he needs a woman. A real woman, someone like them, not the girl he's with now, who couldn't be more wrong for him. ("Poor Baby"). When the inevitable sex happens, Kathy appears and performs a dance that conveys the difference between having sex and making love ("Tick-Tock"). The next morning, April wakes up to report for duty. She's got to be on Flight 18 to "Barcelona" in a few hours. Robert makes the customary false pleas for her to stay, and for some inexplicable reasons, the pleading works and she does. Robert is less than pleased. Robert takes another girlfriend, Marta this time, to visit Peter and Susan's terrace. They've gotten their divorce. Peter flew to Mexico to get it, and it was so nice there he phoned Susan and she joined him there for a vacation. They're still living together. They have too many responsibilities to actually split up, and their relationship has actually been strengthened by their divorce. Susan takes Marta inside to make lunch, and Peter asks Robert if he's ever had a homosexual experience. They both admit they have. Robert asks Peter if he's gay, which he denies, but Peter questions if mankind wouldn't prefer to just "ball it" if it weren't for social norms and wonders if he and Robert could ever have something. Robert, clearly uncomfortable, laughs the conversation off as a joke as the women return. Joanne and Larry take Robert out to a nightclub, and as Larry dances, Joanne and Robert get thoroughly drunk. She regales him with tales of her ex-husbands and insults Larry before yelling at some women at the next table to stop looking at her. She raises her glass in a mocking toast to "The Ladies who Lunch", a damning list of foolish middle-aged women who pretend to be so smart, yet who waste their lives away in their living rooms. She blames Robert for always being an outsider, and then berates Larry again. By the end of the song, Joanne has realized that she herself is "the lady who lunches", of whom she has been scoffing at all evening. She hates herself not only because of how unsatisfactory her lifestyle has become, but because she is worse than the fellow women she scorns---Joanne is the one who wastes her life away, criticizing people who have the same faults as her. Larry takes Joanne's drunken rant without complaint and explains to Robert that despite the fact she's so abusive, or maybe because of it, he loves her dearly. As soon he leaves to pay the check, Joanne propositions Robert. She'll take care of him, she says. But who will he take care of? Joanne and Larry leave Robert to finally come to terms with his breakthrough. He finally confronts the five couples. Why get married, he cries. What do you get from it but someone to smother you and make you feel things you don't want to feel? But his arguments pale and he finally, finally wishes for someone to share his life with, someone to help and hurt and hinder and love, someone to face the challenge of "Being Alive" with. Back at the opening party, his friends waited two hours, but Robert hasn't shown up. Finally, they all get the message and go home, wishing their absent friend a happy birthday. Robert appears alone, smiles, and blows out his candles. | |||||||||
| Interests: | 30: acting, angst, applause, award shows, cake, choreography, cramped changing rooms, dancing, exercise, fine wine, his married friends, jeans, leather, music, new york, pot, rehearsals, reviews, scotch, sex, singing, smell of hairspray, smell of make-up, spotlights, striped shirts, suits, take-out, theatres, travel, women | |||||||||
| Schools: | None listed | |||||||||
| Friends: |
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| Mutual Friends: | 8: aequitas_right, being_alive35, catx5_452_fever, faceofboeshane, gcooper, hippiechylde, i_got_him, lucas_roe | |||||||||
| Member of: | 2: chaos_cube, the_attic | |||||||||
| Account type: | Free Patient | |||||||||
